it's About Stupid Congress

I thought I'd do my part on the endless post-mortems by recalling something that has been too often overlooked in this election, The Contract With America.

The political gamers don't generally give much credence to the Contract. In a similar way, the Democrats had nothing to offer this year other than hating Bush. This ignores the purpose of political philosophy. It's not about giving people political candy, but doing what works.

One of the most annoying things that Bush did in October was proclaiming that the Democrats will raise your taxes. Well, his administration has raised your costs. I believe in things like a flat tax or a properly graduated tax because they get the most money out of taxpayers. When you cut rates, you gain compliance and you get more dollars into the Treasury. When you raise taxes on the rich, the rich hire expensive lawyers and accountants who stonewall the IRS and then make deals for pennies on the dollar. When you have a complicated tax code, Wesley Snipes gets away with paying no taxes for a decade and John Kerry's wife pays a lower tax rate than I do.

Back to the Contract. The one thing that could have saved Congress this year was The Citizen Legislature Act of 1995. It imposed a 12 year term limit on all members of Congress. If it had passed, Mark Foley would have been out before now. Term limits are not just a rallying point for people who hate government, it is a broad based solution to corrupted, entrenched legislatures.

For your reading pleasure, Republicans who lost after being in the House for
over a decade:

Hayworth
Johnson
Shaw
Hostettler
Leach
Bass
Taylor
Weldon

Plus:
Richard Pombo could have been eliminated by term limits instead of becoming the biggest recipinet of Abramoff money.

Gil Gutknecht's opponent used his extension of a 12 year term to 14 after supporting the Contract with America in 1995 as a winning campaign issue.


In the Senate, 3+ term losers:

Burns
DeWine
Santorum